


birds of a feather

by karples



Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, spoilers for chapters 1-14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4103493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karples/pseuds/karples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Takayama isn’t smiling at Eishi, looking back at Eishi, then Takayama is looking at the sky. Eishi doesn’t find it odd until he realizes that for a person whose parents died in a plane crash, Takayama sure loves to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	birds of a feather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [06seconds_left](https://archiveofourown.org/users/06seconds_left/gifts).



> written for a prompt supplied by 06seconds_left: "you get me, more than you should."

Facts: **  
**

1\. Takayama rinses his hands before he eats and after he goes to the bathroom (an upstanding citizen, unlike Kamoda and Sagisawa and, Eishi is ashamed to admit, himself), but the dark crescent of oil beneath his nails never washes out.

2\. Takayama wakes up with a bedhead, combs his hair, and still has a bedhead. Eishi can confirm, having tried to wrangle Takayama’s hair into submission (yearbook photos,  _very important_ ), only to end up with a bad case of static shock and the scent of Takayama’s shampoo rubbed into his skin, something that he didn’t notice until he’d carried it home with him.

3\. If Takayama isn’t smiling at Eishi, looking back at Eishi, then Takayama is looking at the sky. Eishi doesn’t find it odd until he realizes that for a person whose parents died in a plane crash, Takayama sure loves to fly.

 

Number 3 occurs to Eishi while he and Takayama are cruising through the twilit hours, a patchy scud of clouds separating them from the glittering jawline of Tokyo Bay. It’s a routine that Eishi’s intent on maintaining, two AM night flights, clearing his head where the air’s thinner and the wind replaces the murmur of human voices. He's not going to complain if Takayama quietly shadows him, close enough to make eye contact, far enough to feel distant. Manageable and uncomplicated, exactly where Eishi wants him to be (or maybe not, but he can’t get too complacent now, can’t let Takayama slip under his skin).

He’s floating on his back, trying to dissect and name all his tiny tangled feelings, watching Takayama hover above him, swamped in his enormous wings, when the black-out opens behind Takayama like an inverted moon. Eishi opens his mouth to shout, except his head processes it faster– _Takayama!!_  Not that Takayama required a warning, because he’s reeling around in one of his fancy flight tricks that Eishi hasn’t quite mastered, and there really was no need to sound so urgent, damn it,  _damn_  it.

What’s visible of the black-out (monster, beastie,  _shapeshifting_  beastie, says the voice in the back of Eishi’s head that sounds suspiciously like an overexcited Sagisawa) looks like half of a bowling pin with a dorsal fin or flipper. Takayama doesn’t bother using their mental channels, shoots Eishi a stare that clearly means  _come here_  and Eishi’s flying to his side, grabbing the fin and frog-treading the air to keep up with Takayama’s backwards glide.

He’s having trouble puzzling out what exactly the black-out represents ( _linked to your mental states_ , the professor had said, and Eishi’s waiting with chilled palms for his to turn up) and it’s like yanking out a splinter. _Number 3, two fins on a smooth bowling pin, similar to his first black-out._ It annoys him that the only thing he can think of is a penguin, and then the black-out lights up, aerodynamic torque and liquid-fast maneuverability and the whirring of blades.

 _Plane_ , Eishi understands, like ice in his blood.  _Plane_.

Takayama doesn’t bat a lash, sinking a blade into the black-out without hesitation. Eishi hurries to join him and they dispose of it swiftly, falling into typical patterns, Takayama clawing it apart and Eishi blowing it up for a creative finish.

The whole flight home, Eishi sneaks glances at Takayama’s face. It’s like strong-arming secrets from a safe, that cool serene expression confusing Eishi as much as it relieves him, in a small, selfish way, to not have to watch Takayama cry. Takayama’s got years on the rest of them, Eishi reassures himself, years to compartmentalize, years to deal, but the idea of third-grade Takayama facing down his demons hurts Eishi too (and what good is it, envisioning potential scenarios, reviewing all the ways it could’ve gone  _wrong_ , this is not damage control, this is the shadow of something hanging over the heart).

“You’re distracted, Ei-chan, what happened,” Kamoda whines at lunch the next day, and Eishi pats his bald head like one would pet a kitten, offers an excuse and huddles against Kamoda’s side for a power nap. The more he thinks about it, the more (his head hurts) he recognizes that Takayama’s flight lessons were less about the immediacy of danger than they were about sharing what he’d loved, alone, for so long, even though his family had been knocked out of the sky.

That night, Takayama meets him for their usual rendezvous, perched on a flickering halogen streetlamp like an overgrown crow. The tilt of his head tells Eishi that Takayama’s prepared for Eishi's questions, that Takayama’s solved Eishi like a baby crossword. Eishi folds his arms in an attempt to bolster his confidence.

“Are you okay?” he asks warily, because first things first, and Takayama smiles.

“I’m okay.”

“Are you one hundred percent sure?” Eishi demands. “You don’t feel, you don’t feel bad or anything? Like traumatized, or unhappy, or strangely and unusually conflicted, or even…” He stops gesticulating long enough to wonder if he’s stepping on Takayama’s landmines, if he’s losing Takayama by pushing too hard, too soon. He should’ve asked the professor for advice, should’ve… “Do you ever, do you ever feel guilty?”

Takayama blinks once, twice, not breaking eye contact. On anyone else, that expression would seem arrogant or oblivious. On Takayama, it makes him appear young, so clear and self-certain that it hits Eishi where it counts, a broken rib he carries in his gut, a semi-precious desire worth protecting.

“I guess I let it go,” Takayama says, matter-of-fact, and grins, showing the white curve of his teeth. Eishi can't help but flush. Takayama is an endearing contagion, and a part of Eishi believes that Takayama is doing this for Eishi’s benefit, because Eishi wants to fly  _with_  him, be  _near_  him, emphasis on the preposition.

“You know,” Takayama adds, and Eishi does, of course Eishi does, better than he should, so he says nothing, kicks off before Takayama can react and listens to Takayama’s laughter spilling behind him, bright as coins in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: that moment when chapter 15 comes out and a piece of your headcanon is negated ahahahaha


End file.
